I sincerely believe the Braves seriously want to win. I think they know how to win. I think they have the institutional knowledge as a franchise to be successful at winning division titles. I know they don’t have a lackadaisical or careless approach toward putting together a successful team and winning games. You won’t see them disinterested in the results as long as people keep buying tickets. You know they won’t think “what are they going to do, drive to Baltimore for baseball? And even if they do, who cares?” Even in the mini-rebuild of the mid-2010s (and to the frustration of some observers), the Braves were interested in presenting some form of a non-comatose ballclub.
However, since the red-hot-for-two-months Braves reached 45-21 in early June, the Braves have preferred to kick it into low gear in regards to the bullpen. It’s perplexing to see them make some of the near-end-of-game decisions in the last month. Specifically:
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June 23, 2026 – Allowing Carlos Carrasco to pitch the sixth and some of the seventh in a one-run game. Carrasco allowed the Padres to tie the game. The Braves were avoiding pitching the winning side of the bullpen options such as Robert Suarez and Raisel Iglesias. They used Iglesias anyway in a loss.
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July 5, 2026 – Allowing Carlos Carrasco to pitch the eighth and the ninth in a two-run game. The Mets’ lead swelled to seven, before the Braves scored six in the bottom of the ninth.
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July 10, 2026 – Allowing Danny Young to pitch the eighth in a tie game, with higher-leverage options available (or at least rested). The Cardinals took the lead with a home run off Young, and rode BABIP luck to the win.
It’s a departure from April 29, when a ninth-inning Matt Olson home run pulled a win away from the Detroit Tigers. When Walt Weiss talked after the game, he dropped this nugget to the media.
Down one, you gotta be careful doing this too often, especially down one… been chasing those games with our bullpen, you know trying to keep it there. Because I feel like our offense is in a really good place. And I feel like if we keep it to one, we got a really good chance of winning those games late.
And the reaction from Braves Country was one of appreciation and relief. It was a fan base that had tired of the inning-and-lead tiered and structured approach of years past. But that’s a much different approach than the last five weeks or so. Victories stopped being appreciated in the standings and were more defined by the absence of the higher-leverage options. But let’s examine that walkoff win a little closer. Was it that much different than the last five weeks? Do you know who pitched the ninth inning while down one run on April 29th? Raisel Iglesias? Robert Suarez? No, Reynaldo Lopez. And not somewhat/fully recovered Lopez from July. It was the Lopez that was recently removed from the rotation, and hadn’t pitched in eight days. That night, Reynaldo’s four-seam topped out at 93 mph. Seven days ago, he hit 97 mph with it.
Regardless, they pushed a recently called-up JR Ritchie to the sixth. Then Dylan Lee threw 28 pitches and picked up four strikeouts. Then they handed to the seventh or eighth guy in the bullpen for two innings. So, it was a mix of asking the higher-leverage option to push for five outs, and whatever you would consider Reynaldo Lopez at that point (last or next-to-last guy?) for two innings. They were giving themselves a chance, but still they were relying (or maybe forced to rely) on a poor option.
The Braves’ bullpen overall has been excellent this season. They’re second in ERA, first in FIP, and fourth in xFIP. They’re first in fWAR too, even though I’m not crazy about WAR for relievers for reasons I will probably lay out later this season. But very good overall, clearly. But are they, though? When you remove Dylan Lee, Didier Fuentes, Raisel Iglesias, and Robert Suarez, the remainder has collected 0.0 WAR. Now, some of that total has been pushed down by players that are no longer on the roster: Aaron Bummer, Carlos Carrasco, Osvaldo Bido and Joel Payamps. But still the remainder is merely okayish and very league-replacement-like.
Here are the Braves’ run differential totals for this season. These are 1-run, 2-run, etc. games thrown into buckets. 55 of the Braves 95 games have been decided by 3 runs or less. So if these numbers hold, they will play 39 more over the next ten weeks. When you factor in Average Leverage Index for relievers, the Braves are solidly middle of the pack at 18th. Average Leverage Index for relievers is again square in the middle at 15th. So on paper, these are pretty normal bullpen usage numbers. However, the Braves are delivering a first place performance in reliever WPA, and doing it with 4 pitchers doing the heavy lifting. So it’s like many workplaces, it’s average workload with the vast majority of work throughput being produced by four people.
But does 35-45 games in conflict sound about right going forward? And will each of those 35-45 games require one to four higher-leverage options to pitch? If the answer to those questions is both yes, then you have more questions to answer. How do you make up the gap in the sixth through ninth innings with four good options? Do you add another starting pitcher that you are willing to allow to pitch 3 times through the order? Do you add more relievers? Stands to the side for Ivan and Omar to scream RELIEVEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRSSSS!!! In any case, the Braves will likely need to add something. They just don’t have the requisite personnel to service four plus innings a night. And Dylan Dodd can only chip in so much.
Oh well, moar pitching plz. Or home runs, lots of home runs.
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